When Work Wise UK asked me to write a blog for this year’s Work Wise Week, it got me thinking about what the word ‘wise’ might mean in the context of work in the current climate – what does it mean to be ‘wise’ about work as we in the UK emerge from the pandemic? Broadly, we know the word wise suggests some level of knowledge, understanding, and to be wise is to have the ability to analyse your experiences and gain insight. So, to be ‘work wise’ right now could not be more important. But what work-based insights have we gained over the course of the last 12 months?

Despite the blur of the last year and all the challenges so many of us have had to juggle – turning our dining rooms into offices, home schooling, and the ongoing concerns for friends and family – we have certainly gained great insight into home-based working. This has, of course, not been a ‘normal’ period of time to be working at home – it’s been a sort of forced social experiment. But it has encouraged all sorts of organisations and knowledge workers to see and understand how working from home works, and for many leadership teams to see that office based work is not always necessary, or indeed, productive.

However, as we move out of the crisis, have we really thought about what positive changes we can make in the workplace (wherever that workplace might be!), and have we really stopped to think about the lessons we have learned that might make life better for our employees? If organisations have spent time meaningfully reflecting on what a better workplace looks like post-Covid, and they’ve consulted their staff on how working practices have changed whilst working at home, then great! And I hope these stories of change and re-organising are shared far and wide. If organisations have not yet pressed paused to think about these things, then now is the time.

One of my concerns about ‘what next’/ ‘post-pandemic’ is that organisations are blindly moving towards hybrid ways of working without thinking about the lived experiences of their workers. In much of my research and consultancy work I focus on helping organisations understand their employee’s lived experiences of space and place at work. I’m a sociologist, and business and management workspace specialist and I help companies think differently and creatively about their spatial change projects. So often I see top-down decisions getting made that lack the authentic staff engagement needed to make long-lasting, impactful change.

It seems to me that what matters now is the power of reflection – organisations and leadership teams, and employees themselves, taking some time out to celebrate achievements over the past year, as well as asking themselves – how has the pandemic changed the way we work? What positives can we take from these new ways of working? What have the challenges been? What have we learned about others and ourselves? Taking the time to re-evaluate and re-frame our thinking about the spaces and places of work, and how these impact working practices and working life will be a valuable part of how we effectively move forward.